“But if I were to tell you that the knowledge interests me deeply; that by it I may possibly be guided in a most eventful decision?”
“Oh, if you mean to say, 'Alfred Layton has asked me to marry him, and my reply depends upon what I may learn about his family and their station '—”
“No, no; I have not said that,” burst in May.
“Not said, only implied it. Still, if it be what you desire me to entertain, I will have no concealments from you.”
“I cannot buy your secret by a false pretence, Loo; there is no such compact as this between Layton and myself. Alfred asked me—”
“Alfred!” said Mrs. Morris, repeating the name after her, and with such a significance as sent all the color to the girl's cheek and forehead,—“Alfred! And what did Alfred ask you?”
“I scarcely know what I am saying,” cried May, as she covered her face with her hands.
“Poor child!” cried Mrs. Morris, tenderly, “I can find my way into your heart without your breaking it. Do not cry, dearest. I know as well all that he said as if I had overheard him saying it! The world has just its two kinds of suitors,—the one who offers us marriage in a sort of grand princely fashion, and the other who, beseechingly proclaiming his utter unworthiness, asks us to wait,—to wait for an uncle or a stepmother's death; to wait till he has got this place in the colonies, or that vicarage in Bleakshire; to wait till he has earned fame and honor, and Heaven knows what; till, in fact, he shall have won a wreath of laurel for his brows, and we have attained to a false plait for ours!” She paused a second or two to see if May would speak, but as she continued silent, Mrs. Morris went on: “There are few stock subjects people are more eloquent in condemning than what are called long engagements. There are some dozen of easy platitudes that every one has by heart on this theme; and yet, if the truth were to be told, it is the waiting is the best of it,—the marriage is the mistake! That faint little flickering hope that lighted us on for years and years is extinguished at the church door, and never relighted after; so that, May, my advice to you is, never contract a long engagement until you have made up your mind not to marry at the end of it! My poor, poor child! why are you sobbing so bitterly? Surely I have said nothing to cause you sorrow?”
May turned away without speaking, but her heaving shoulders betrayed how intensely she was weeping.
“May I see him,—may I speak with him, May?” said Mrs. Morris, drawing her arm affectionately around her waist.